Flynn: Son of Crimson is a 2D action adventure platformer with metroidvania elements. Set in a wondrous world with a looming darkness beginning to awaken yet again. Take on the role of Flynn, a young man orphaned as a child who sets out to chase the shadows of his beginnings whilst awakening the ancient power of Crimson within him. Discover relics of ancient Rosantica, effigies and monuments to the goddess Sorrell that reveal hints at Flynn’s beginnings and unlock new powers. Reveal secret pathways, trade with villagers, battle fierce monsters, hang out with dogs.

What can you expect?

Explore a wondrous world filled with discovery, taking place in unique regions designed with non-linear exploration.

Swap between multiple weapons with quick and satisfying combat.

Dive in to a land with ancient mysteries and rich story.

Travel across the lands, discovering new ways to roam and opening new paths using the power of crimson.

Dip in and out of an alternate dimension to make unique alterations to the real world.

View a realm full of life, carefully formed with hand-crafted pixel art.

Trade trinkets for new combat techniques and runes with an old war veteran.

Call on your companion Dex in times of need, a mystical and loyal creature.

Test your strength in the feared Rustwood coliseum among other challenging feats.

Programming and design

Case Portman and myself are working on design and production, while Case is also doing all the programming.

Fantastic pixel art -- although the quality of it seems to waver in the the forth gameplay GIF. That said, the second gameplay GIF particularly benefits form all the layers you have going on and looks lovely. Curious as to what different weapons you'll be able to use -- looks like you're hoping to have a combat that involving combo chains based on weapon switching?

Don't worry haha, we went through a small phase of thinking the same, but honestly when we saw a full mockup of a few completely polished anims, they worked so much better with the overall artstyle.

WeaponsSo the weapons are unlocked by defeating the stage's boss and activating it's Shrine. New weapons not only give you a new style of combat but also come with new abilities that allow you to access new areas. Rather than separating a new item to unlock a door or something, we tied these two together for a more simple, yet interesting approach.

Crimson SwordYou will acquire this weapon pretty early on and will be your basic (but upgrade-able) weapon throughout the game. Medium speed and medium damage, but once you start upgrading with new abilities such as uppercut and dash attack, it'll become much more interesting.

Crimson AxeThe axe is a heavy hitting weapon which is great for piling on bigger damage, great tool for stunning enemies if you're in a spot of bother! The axe is also used to break down the Crimson walls to access new areas.

Crimson claws..Or how people keep referring to as 'boxing gloves', but that's just the rough version! :D These things are the faster weapons in game, less damage dealt but allows you to keep striking into enemies and applying different combos (as long as your stamina bar isn't empty). These things also give you the ability to drill into certain areas in the ground, again, unlocking new areas.

We've recently come to the realisation that having a stamina bar completely took away from the player experience when it came to smashing through enemies with the current weapons we have implemented, so we took a drastic change and got rid of it entirely; combat feels so much better without it.

So now we're experimenting with a combo system (still very primitive, but will update once we get more of it implemented). With the stamina not getting in the way, you can create your own combos of attacks using the quick weapon switching between attacks.

Here's a few we came up with:

Combo 1:

Combo 2:

Combo 3:

Combo 4:

You can create any combo for any situation or just stick with your favourite, giving lots of possibilities to varying play styles. Of course we will be introducing enemies and hazards that require the use of certain weapons too.